NAGOYA, Japan — Major luxury brands will have a new home when Midland Square, a recently developed commercial building, opens here on March 6.
The building will contain 60 stores, ranging from fashion retailers to restaurants. Tenants so far include Loewe, Cartier, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Chaumet, Celine, Van Cleef & Arpels and Baccarat. Thirty-eight of the retailers are new to the Nagoya market, which is located halfway between Tokyo and Osaka. Nagoya has a population of over two million, and more come into the city to work.
Luxury brands will use the first and second floors. Louis Vuitton will occupy 9,655 square feet over three floors in a store designed by Takayoshi Nagaishi. The Vuitton facade is an image of “gift wrapping,” while Eric Carlson created the interior. Vuitton held an opening party for the store on Thursday at the Toyota Commemorative Museum of Industry and Technology.
Louis Vuitton’s new store here will be its fifth in the Nagoya market and the 54th in Japan. The new store is smaller than the brand’s megastores in Matsuya Ginza (13,240 square feet) and Kobe Daimaru (15,460 square feet), but the firm believes the store will satisfy the appetite of Nagoya consumers, who are often described as “brand lovers.”
Also in the center, Cartier will have 5,240 square feet, Dior’s store will be 4,670 square feet, Loewe will have 2,100 square feet and Celine will take 1,270 square feet on the first floor. Besides luxury brands, names from the U.S. such as Dean & Deluca and Kate Spade New York will open in Midland Square.
The 810-foot-high building is run by three firms — Toyota Motor Corp., the main tenant; Towa Real Estate, and the Mainichi Newspapers. Fashion retailers will occupy from the first to the fifth floors. Restaurants will be located on the basement level and the 41st and 42nd floors; offices, including ones for Toyota, already occupy the remaining floors. A cinema complex will be located on the fifth and sixth floors.